Mike Paget writes:

"I work as an educational designer and simulation technician for the faculty of medicine, and I also make videogames in an art context. I read a fair bit of technical material, so I'm always looking to balance that with fiction. I've read the complete works of the following and liked them:

• Steinbeck
• Hemingway
• Murakami
• Kafka
• Mishima
• Hesse
• Dostoevsky

I'm not a huge Thomas Pynchon fan. But I definitely enjoy somewhat noir, suburban hallucinatory existentialism. I also read some bad fantasy pulp."

Well Mike, your question had several of our booksellers frothing at the mouth, since your taste happens to coincide nicely with theirs....

Steve Benstead picked up on your yen for Steinbeck and Hemingway. He suggested you move on to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is truly one of the great American novelists and prose stylists. If you've already read The Great Gatsby (and if not, why not?!) then try Tender Is the Night and go from there.

David Pensato asks: What happens when you mash together "bad fantasy pulp" with Hesse and Dostoevsky? His answer? Kurt Vonnegut. Dave will go on and on about him to just about anyone who'll listen (trust us, he will), and he thinks that your tastes in particular point straight to Vonnegut in flashing marquee lighting. Take Cat's Cradle. Written in 1964, the book revolves around a scientist who creates a secret substance, entrusted to his children upon his death called ice-nine that raises the freezing temperature of water to 45.8°C: should it ever come in contact with anything, ice-nine will trigger the destruction of the planet, which it does. On the noir side of the Vonnegut spectrum, you should read Mother Night. Howard W. Campbell Jr. is a playwright living in Nazi Germany. Then the CIA enlists him to pose as an English-speaking Nazi propagandist. In the aftermath of the war, Campbell struggles to find meaning, finally hoping that his desire to be convicted of war-crimes will provide it. From there, Vonnegut's world is your oyster, but you'll likely want to proceed by delving into his most acclaimed novels: Slaughterhouse-Five (in which Campbell makes a brief appearance) and Breakfast of Champions, which introduces Vonnegut's recurring alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, an aging, unknown pulp/sci-fi writer.

Ryan McBride recommends you try Paul Auster, who some regard as the American Murakami (or is Murakami the Japanese Paul Auster?). Start with The New York Trilogy, then move on to Moon Palace and Oracle Night. Auster's novels are essentially mysteries with an existential/metaphysical bent; they are all hallucinatory in some way or another; and the best of them are also quite moving. George Saunders is another writer you might want to explore. His books are mostly short story collections: In Persuasion Nation and Pastoralia contain some of truly crazy tales, and Saunders is an unsurpassed master of deadpan wit. Finally, Ryan also suggests the short stories of Raymond Carver. Although grounded firmly in the mundane working-class world, Carver's stories often have the effect of truly great poetry: by shining a light through the spaces between words, they illuminate feelings and ideas we don't have words for. Cathedral probably shows off Carver's range the best.

And finally, Chadwick Ginther has three books to recommend. China Mieville's Perdido Street Station is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke and British Fantasy Awards. It's also the first novel set in Mieville's New Crobuzon and is one of the early books in the "new weird" trend of fantasy. In A. Lee Martinez's Gil's All Fright Diner, a vampire and a werewolf stop at a diner, and end up getting caught up in a zombie uprising. A fun, fast paced fantasy with strong horror elements. Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself is probably the strongest debut fantasy novel Chad says he has ever read. Abercrombie's novel is darkly comic and populated with the nastiest sort of rogues.

Well hopefully that's enough to get you started, Mike. Happy reading!